


Hit the Lights, Lock the Doors.

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Breaking up is hard to do, Character Death, F/M, hawkeyesxmas2016, old clint/old kate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:37:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: Clint is familiar with goodbyes. Nice goodbyes that are promises of maybe-next-time, the terrible ones when you don't even really get a goodbye, just a broken body bleeding out. And there's the angry ones we're there's screaming and hurting and the only thing you care is about hurting back and you end up feeling hollow, as if you had been carved open and are left there to bleed out.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snows/gifts).



They don't have much time and Kate knows it. Despite the years, despite the extra pounds that are not well-defined-muscle, the weight of Clint's arm around her shoulder still feels familiar, like the almost forgotten lyrics to a once favorite song.

Clint grunts when she lets him go, trying to help him into a sort of controlled fall against the wall.

“Sorry,” she says, already knowing that it's bad. Stomach wounds are always bad, and she doesn't have the resources. They've managed to hide in a half abandoned building, before the children – god, she still thinks of them as children – find them. Her Hawkeyes won't arrive on time for this kind of wound, she knows that. Still, she has to try. “This could get rough.”

Clint grunts, tries to smile at her. His teeth are bloody looking, and Kate doesn't know if it's from having been punched before or from bleeding out. 

“Gonna be like that, Hawkeye?”

She has to smile a little, even as she takes out her first aid kit. 

She doesn't have the kind of anesthesia Clint would use for this. She cleans the wound as much as she can, lies to herself as she says that it doesn't look that bad when it does, and Clint grits his teeth as she bandages him, thinking of all the people she has seen gone. The practical part of her tells her that Clint is sixty five, he lived a life that plenty of people didn't get a chance to, while he retired and stopped helping others. The part of her that never stoped caring is trying to brace for a world without the other Hawkeye.

“You started it, Hawkeye,” she says instead.

Clint hums, breathing in slowly. Kate should tell him that they need to go, keep going. She doubts that he can. 

“Remember that time with the--”

“Fucking. Putty. Arrow.” Kate huffs. And then, more softly. “Stay awake, Hawkeye.”

“I am, I am. I promise,” and he is lying again. Kate remembers Clint promising her, once that he wouldn't lie to her, and she remembers being twenty and wanting to believe him, even knowing that he saying that was already a lie.

So she says nothing, and she doesn't tell him that they have to go. Instead she moves forward so that Clint can lean against her and Kate pretends she doesn't see the blood seeping through the once white bandages.

“Clint?”

“Mmm?”

“I was almost in love with you,” she says, because if it's about to be over, then the secrets should be over as well. 

Clint opens his eyes with that and they still make Kate hurt. She hasn't felt that way about Clint Barton in more than thirty years, and still, in the place where that love used to be, she feels her heart break.

“I lied, Kate.”

“I know,” she sighs.

Clint shakes his head no, tries to sit down, and he almost screams when that pulls at the wound on his belly. Kate holds him and Clint's hand clings tight to her arm. 

“You don't,” Clint says between clenched teeth. There's blood in his spit. Her team will be there in fifteen minutes and it will be, Kate thinks, too late. She knows the way Clint's eyes look, has seen it before. It doesn't make it easier. “When I said I didn't want you. I lied.”

And it's just like Clint, to die after that, for his body to give up. Kate feels him shake as he goes and Clint's last breath is a whisper of her name. Kate holds his body and feels each and every single of her fifty two years, all of her bruises and aches. Her eyes sting and she doesn't cry. She kisses Clint's forehead before she lowers the body to the ground. 

“I know.” She whispers, and thens she has to go and try and save what's left of this world, or die trying.

****

Clint is familiar with goodbyes. Nice goodbyes when there are hugs and promises of maybe-next-time, when you can pretend that it's not a goodbye and it's just a see you soon. The terrible ones when you don't even really get a goodbye, just a broken body bleeding out and you're trying to hold as tight as you can, as if that could somehow fix everything. 

And the angry ones we're there's screaming and hurting and the only thing you care is about hurting back and you end up feeling hollow, as if you had been carved open and are left there to bleed out. 

After he and Kate are done screaming at each other, he feels that way. Kate, brave, strong, amazing Kate, is looking at him with wide blue hurt eyes and Clint hates himself a little bit more with that. He licks his lips, tries to look around to something, anything, that could somehow fix up this mess. 

“Sorry,” he says, knowing it doesn't fix anything but he has to start somewhere. Kate glares at him and Clint almost winces. He rubs his neck and looks up, muttering to himself. “This could get rough.”

Kate doesn't say anything at all, arms crossed, looking away. Her bag is still by the door, with all the left over things she had never taken away and now she is, as if making sure to tell him that this time, for good, she's not coming back.

Clint waits to see if she says anything at his beginning of an apology, but Kate keeps on giving him the cold shoulder.

“Gonna be like that, Hawkeye?” he asks.

Kate shrugs. “You started it, Hawkeye.”

But it's something, a start, and Clint should know better than to hope but he does anyway. He offers Kate a small smile, then goes towards her things by the door and the bundle of arrows she's taking with her. 

“Remember that time with the--”

“Fucking. Putty. Arrow.” Kate sighs and, at least, she smiles a little even if she rolls her eyes at him. “Stay awake, Hawkeye.”

“I am, I am. I promise.” 

He stands up again, gets close to Kate and looks down at her. She's still leaving, Clint knows. There's nothing, he thinks, that could make it better, that could change things or make Kate not go. And she should go, Clint thinks. Before he manages to get her killed or ruined or something. Or everything. He touches her arm, softly and he feels more than see Kate sighing again, as she leans a little of her weight against his hand. 

“Clint?”

“Mmm?”

“I was almost in love with you,” Kate shrugs, as if saying 'once'. This is not a better goodbye than the one they were screaming at each other.

And it's a terrible idea, because there is no coming back from this, Clint knows. No matter what happens, they might get back from this, as it is. They need time, of course, and space, because Clint is an asshole who keeps pushing everyone away. But even when he does, if he's lucky, if he remembers to breath and fix things, sometimes, people come back.

He knows he wouldn't be able to hold on together if Kate never came back. If they were never a team again.

And yet.

“I lied, Kate.”

“I know,” and Kate tries to move away, but he keeps his hand on her shoulder for just one more moment, just to get Kate to look at him. 

“You don't,” and there, Kate looks at him and the fact that this is a bad idea won't stop him, can't stop him. “When I said I didn't want you. I lied.”

Kate looks at him and there's shock and anger and something that Clint doesn't want to focus on. So when Kate pulls at his shirt down he closes his eyes and Kate kisses him hard. And then he can't stop himself from kissing her back, leaning forward until he simply picks up Kate and Kate wraps strong, clever legs around his waist and strong, clever arms around his neck.

They don't bother even with undressing completely. Kate's wearing a skirt and Clint can just press her against the wall and let Kate hold on while he pulls her panties down and off her legs, he can just open his jeans and roll a condom that Kate hands him over and then for one slow, long moment everything slows down as Kate sinks down on him until he's so deep he can't say where he ends, where Kate begins. 

Then Kate shivers and curls her fingers on the nape of his neck and she kisses him again, moaning against his lips, rolling her hips down against him. Clint feels his hipbones pressing tight, tight, tight against her thighs, knows there'll be bruises in the shape of his fingers on Kate's thighs, knows he'll have Kate's fingers marked on his shoulders. 

And it doesn't take long for this, for them, for this need ache want that Clint has been doing his best to ignore for months, maybe years. Kate kisses and bites wherever she reaches: Clint knows he'll have a mark on his neck where Kate bites as she comes for the first time, and he keeps going, feels her shudder and then he's the one shivering when Kate moves one arm between them so she can thumb at her clit again, and Clint feels her, from inside again, how Kate goes for her second orgasm again. 

He finishes a few seconds before she does again and Kate moans against his mouth when he kisses her again, and he kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, because then maybe they won't have to continue with this goodbye. 

But of course, it doesn't work like that. Desperate, angry-sad sex has never actually fixed anything. It only turned this goodbye from a screaming one where their anger would have kept them away from the pain for a little while into one of the ones where it hurts to say goodbye. 

After they clean up, Kate murmurs his name and Clint smiles a little, leans forward to kiss her, softly this time. 

“I know,” he says, which is also a goodbye. He doesn't say good luck, or see you soon, and instead he just watches his partner go away again.


End file.
